Thrall: Twilight of the Aspects

12

What?” Thrall at first thought this was some kind of joke, a draconic attempt at mortal humor. But Nozdormu seemed very serious. Thrall was both furious and completely confused. Even the other bronzes drew back and murmured among themselves.

Nozdormu heaved a great sigh. “It was given unto me to know the very hour and method of my own death,” he said. “I would never sssubvert it. But only one of the pathwaysss to my destiny can be correct. And in one unfolding future, I became the leader of the infinite dragonflight. That was why I became lost in the timewaysss, Thrall. I was ssseeking understanding of how such a thing came to be. How I, who have always striven to honor the great duty the titans charged me with, could have fallen so far astray.”

Thrall nodded, though he was still shocked and more than a little wary.

“Did … you discover how to prevent such a thing from happening?” he asked.

Slowly, Nozdormu shook his massive head. “Unfortunately, not yet. One thing I do know, and that isss that all the flightsss must unite against this current menace. Ysera was right: you have certain abilities, waysss of thinking, waysss of ssspeaking, that move others. You have helped so much already, yet I must ask you to help more.”

Help the future leader of the infinite dragonflight? Thrall hesitated. And yet, he could sense nothing of evil in Nozdormu. Not yet anyway. He sensed only worry and chagrin.

“For Ysera, and especially for Desharin, who gave his life that I might find you, Timeless One, I will help. But I will need to know more. I fear I have been operating in the dark most of this time.”

“Considering Ysera sought you out, that does not sssurprise me,” Nozdormu said, dryly but with affection. “She is ssseldom clear. Thrall, son of Durotan and Draka, you have my deepest thanksss. We will share with you what we can … but you must undertake this alone. This theory, this conviction—I must know more if I am to truly know what we must do. Do not worry: I will not forget that which you have reminded me to remember. I will not get lost in the timeways a sssecond time. It is a difficult task I ssset before you, but one that could sssave everything. You must find Alexstrasza the Life-Binder, and rouse her from her grief.”

“What happened?” Thrall inquired.

“I was not present, yet I know,” said Nozdormu. Thrall nodded. If Nozdormu had been trapped in every moment, of course he would know. “There was a meeting of the various flightsss at Wyrmrest Temple not very long ago. It was the first sssuch since the death of Malygosss, and the end of the Nexus War.

“Alexstrasza’s mate, Korialstrasz, whom you knew as Krasus, lingered behind in the Ruby Sanctum. Each flight has a sssanctum, a sort of … dimension that is jussst for them. The meeting was interrupted by an attack from a flight known as the twilight dragonflight—who ssserve Deathwing and the Twilight’s Hammer cult.”

Thrall frowned. “I know of this cult,” he said.

“During the battle, there was a terrible implosion. Every one of the sssanctums was destroyed. With them went Krasus … and all the eggs in every sssanctum. He killed them all.”

Thrall stared at the bronze dragon. He thought of what he had seen of Krasus: calm, intelligent, caring. “He … he murdered them? All of them?”

“So it would seem,” growled Anachronos. His tail lashed and his eyes were narrowed.

Thrall shook his head firmly. “No. I don’t believe it. There must be some reason, some explanation—”

“The Life-Binder is devastated,” Nozdormu interrupted. “Imagine how she mussst feel. To think that her dearest love had either gone mad, or been in league with the cult—it has shattered her. Without their Aspect, the reds will not lend their aid to fight the Twilight Cult. And without the redsss, there is no chance of victory. All will be lossst.”

He turned his great eyes upon Thrall and said intently, “You must remind her of her duties—of her heart’s ability to care for othersss, even when it is wounded. Can you do this, Thrall?”

Thrall had no idea. It was a daunting task. Could no dragon accomplish it? He had no personal connection with her. How in the world could he convince her to put aside such powerful grief and rejoin a battle?

“I will try,” was all Thrall could answer.

Alexstrasza did not remember where she had been for most of the last several days. Nor did she have any thought as to where she would go. She simply flew, blinded by pain and a desire to escape from it, and let her wings take her where they would.

She had flown over empty gray expanses of ocean, over elven lands and corrupted forests and winterscapes, until she reached this place which seemed as lonely and broken and empty as she was. Her final destination, she had decided, would be in Desolace—a fitting name, she thought bitterly.

She transformed and walked on two feet south from the Stonetalon Mountains. She passed a battle between Horde and Alliance, and gave it no heed; let the short-lived races destroy themselves. It was no concern of hers any longer. She passed a scarred vale pulsing with lava and temperatures only a black dragon could endure, and spared it only a dull glance. Let the world destroy itself. Her love was gone—her love, who had, perhaps, betrayed her and all she had fought for.

Alexstrasza cursed herself, her flight, the other flights; she cursed the titans, who had bequeathed such a burden upon her. She had not asked for it and now realized that she could not bear it.

She removed her boots, wanting to feel the hard, dead earth beneath her feet, and paid no mind to the blisters that formed. The rocky path grew no less rocky, but the land surrendered any memory of grass and became dull and gray. It was oddly powdery beneath her sore feet, comforting in a way the rock had not been. She sensed fel energies here, but merely acknowledged this and moved forward, step by step, leaving smeared bloody prints as she walked.

The dead were here. She saw countless bones of kodos and other creatures, bleached white with age. The skeletons dotted the landscapes as trees did in other places. What living creatures she did see seemed to feast on death—hyenas, vultures. Alexstrasza watched dully as a vulture wheeled over her. She wondered if it had ever tasted dragon before.

It would, soon. This place suited her. She would not leave it.

Slowly, the dragoness once known as the Life-Binder ascended a jutting peak to look down upon the wasteland. She would not eat, nor drink, nor sleep. She would sit atop the peak and wait for death to claim her, and then her suffering would, at last, be over.

Thrall almost missed her.

Even atop the back of one of the great bronze dragons, he could not see everything. He was looking for a red dragon, presumably easy to spot in this empty place. He was not looking for a slender elven female, huddled alone atop a stone peak.

“I will set you down a short distance away,” Tick said. One of the dragons who had guarded the Caverns of Time, she had volunteered to bear Thrall wherever he needed to go—starting with this forsaken place. “I think my presence here will not be welcome.”

She spoke this not in hostility but in deep regret. Thrall imagined that all the dragonflights mourned for what had happened to the Life-Binder. If they had any sense, Thrall thought, every sentient being would mourn it.

“I think that best,” Thrall said. As they came closer, he could see the small form better. He could not see her face, but her body was huddled tight, legs clasped to chest, red head bent over them. Every line of her screamed pain and devastation.

The bronze dragon landed some distance away, crouching so that Thrall could dismount.

“Come here when you are ready to depart,” she told Thrall.

“My hope is that Alexstrasza and I will be departing together,” Thrall reminded her.

Tick looked at him somberly. “Come here when you are ready to depart,” she repeated, and leaped skyward.

Thrall sighed, and glanced up at the peak, and began to climb.

“I hear you, orc,” she said before he had gotten halfway to where she sat alone. Her voice was beautiful but shattered, like a precious glass sculpture smashed by a careless hand: still glittering, still lovely, but in pieces.

“It was not my intention to sneak up on you,” Thrall replied.

She said nothing further. He finished the climb and sat down beside her on the hard stone. She did not even favor him with a glance, much less a word.

After a while, he said, “I know who you are, Life-Binder. I—”

She whirled on him then, her tanned, exquisite face furious, her teeth bared in a snarl. “You will not call me that! Ever! I bind no life, not anymore.”

Her outburst startled but did not surprise him. He nodded. “As you wish. I am Thrall, once the warchief of the Horde, now a member of the Earthen Ring.”

“I know who you are.”

Thrall was slightly taken aback, but continued. “And whatever name I call you by, it is you I have been sent to find.”

“By whom?” she said, her voice and face becoming dull again as she turned away to regard the empty, ugly landscape.

“By Ysera, in part, and by Nozdormu.”

The barest flicker of interest crossed her features, like something half glimpsed in deep water. “He has returned?”

“I sought and found him, as I sought and found you,” Thrall said. “There is much he has learned—much that he believes you need to hear.”

She didn’t reply. Hot air lifted her dark red locks and toyed with them. Thrall wasn’t certain how to proceed. He had been prepared for grief and anger, but this dull, deathly despair—

He told her what had happened until this point, trying to make it sound like a story. If he could rouse some interest, some curiosity—anything other than that horrible stone-still, pallid death mask expression she bore—he would feel heartened. He spoke of Ysera, and the fire elemental who had tried to destroy the ancients. The wind blew, hot and cruel, and still Alexstrasza sat as unmoving as if she had been carved from stone.

“The ancients spoke,” Thrall continued. “Their memories are becoming confused. Someone was damaging the timeways.”

“I know this,” she replied bluntly. “I know the bronzes are concerned about it, and they are enlisting the aid of mortals to correct it. You tell me nothing new, Thrall, and certainly nothing to inspire me to return.”

Her words and voice both were venomous. There was hate in them—but hate, Thrall knew, that wasn’t directed at him. It was directed at Alexstrasza herself.

He pressed on. “Nozdormu believes that many things are connected. They are not separate occurrences. All the terrible events the Aspects have suffered—the mysterious attacks of the infinite dragonflight, the Emerald Nightmare, even the madness of Deathwing and Malygos—Nozdormu senses a pattern in it all, a pattern of attack hammering at the Aspects and their flights. An attack designed to wear them down and defeat them—perhaps even cause them to turn on one another.”

A soft murmur. “Who would wish such a thing, even if it were true?”

Thrall was encouraged by even this faint sign of curiosity. “Nozdormu needs more time to figure it all out,” he answered. “For now, he suspects the infinite dragonflight is at least somewhat involved.”

A silence. “I see.”

“He asked me to find you. To—to help you. Help you heal.” It was difficult, and humbling, to believe that he, a simple orcish shaman, was in a position to heal the Life-Binder herself—perhaps the greatest healer there had ever been. He half expected her to scorn the offer and dismiss it, but she remained silent. He continued.

“If you can recover, many other things will be healed as well. Together we can go to the Nexus, speak with the blues, and help them find clarity. Then—”

“Why?”

The question, asked simply and bluntly, left him without words for a moment.

“Because … it will help them.”

“I ask again: Why?”

“If they are helped, then they can join with us, and we can find out what’s going on. And once we understand that, we can set it right. We can fight the Twilight’s Hammer cultists and defeat them. Figure out what the infinite dragonflight’s motives are. Stop Deathwing once and for all … and save this world, which even now is being ripped to pieces.”

She stared at him, her eyes boring right through him. For a long time she said nothing.

“You do not see,” she said at last.

“What don’t I see, Alexstrasza?” he asked very gently.

“That none of this matters.”

“What do you mean? We have information; we know this is part of a huge, complex plan that has been going on perhaps for millennia! We might be able to stop it!”

Alexstrasza shook her head slowly. “No. It doesn’t matter. None of it. It doesn’t matter if everything is interconnected. It doesn’t matter how long this has been going on. It doesn’t even matter if we can stop it.”

He stared at her, uncomprehending.

“The children,” she said flatly, “are dead. Korialstrasz is dead. I am dead in all ways but one, and that will soon happen. There is no hope. There is nothing. Nothing matters.”

Thrall suddenly felt the heat of anger. He still felt the loss of Taretha as a quiet ache in his heart. Her loss was a necessary one, if all was to be as it should be. But he would miss her, now and always. He thought of how she burned to make a difference, to matter. She had felt there was little she could do, but she had done all she could. The Life-Binder could make differences on a scale that Taretha could not even comprehend, yet she preferred to stay here and insist that nothing mattered.

Things did matter. Taretha mattered. Azeroth mattered. Despite what she endured, Alexstrasza did not have the luxury to wallow in her pain.

He pushed back his anger and tempered it with the compassion he truly did feel for her. “I am sorry for the loss of the eggs,” he said. “To have lost most of a generation—truly, I cannot imagine your pain. And I am sorry for the loss of your mate, especially in such a manner. But … I cannot believe that you would turn your back on those who need you,” he said, anger creeping into his voice. “You are an Aspect, for ancestors’ sake. This is what you were made for. You—”

She sprang from a sitting position straight up into the air with a speed that was almost faster than his eye could follow. A heartbeat later, a giant red dragon hovered over him. The fine gray dust of the dead land was stirred up and covered Thrall’s skin and robe, causing his eyes to water. He leaped to his feet and stepped back quickly, wondering what would happen next.

“Yes, I was made,” Alexstrasza said, her voice deeper, harsher, and full of anger and a blistering bitterness. “Made into the Life-Binder without truly understanding what was being asked of me. And what is being asked of me is no longer bearable. I have sacrificed, and given, and aided, and fought, and my reward is more pain, more demands, and the death of all I hold dear. I do not wish to kill, but I will, orc, if you trouble me further. Nothing matters! Nothing! GO!”

He tried one more time. “Please,” he said, “please consider the innocents who—”

“GO!”

Alexstrasza reared back, beating her wings to keep herself aloft and opening her enormous, sharp-toothed maw, and Thrall fled. A sheet of billowing orange-red flame charred the stone where he had been sitting. He heard her drawing breath again and half ran, half fell down the side of the jutting peak.

A roar filled the heavy air. It was a mixture of anger and anguish, and Thrall’s heart ached for the grieving Aspect. He wished he had been able to find some way to reach her. The thought of her dying here, alone, from lack of food and water and most of all from a broken heart, pained him. He regretfully imagined travelers one day coming across her bones, bleached and old like the other skeletons that dotted this landscape.

He slipped and slid the rest of the way and, bruised and with a heavy spirit, trudged to where Tick had said to meet her. The dragon wheeled above him for a moment, then landed and regarded him sadly.

“Where shall I bear you, Thrall?” she asked quietly.

“We go to the Nexus, just as we planned,” Thrall said, his voice ragged. “We go to convince the blues to unite with the other flights, as Nozdormu asked.”

“And … we go alone.”

Thrall nodded. “Alone.” He glanced back at the shape of a great red dragon, her wings beating erratically, her body contorted as she threw back her horned head. Perhaps, if she saw what the others were doing, her heart might yet be moved. “For now.”

Yet even as they flew northward, over the sound of Tick’s beating wings, Thrall could hear the bitter, roaring grief of a broken Life-Binder.

Like a shadow stretching out across the land at twilight, something dark lifted up from the hollow in which he had concealed himself. Far enough away so that he would likely not be seen, but close enough to keep the quarry within range, King Aedelas Blackmoore, perched atop a twilight dragon, followed.

The wind blew back his long, black hair. His face was, if cruel, not unhandsome. A neatly trimmed black goatee framed thin lips, and his blue eyes snapped beneath elegant black brows.

After the first effort, Blackmoore had decided not to follow Thrall through the timeways. It was too tricky; the odds of his prey eluding him and leading him on a futile chase were too high.

Better to wait, and bide his time, and be where he knew Thrall would eventually have to appear.

Thrall. He had heard enough about Thrall to want to dismember the orc with a paring knife. Thrall, who had slain him, whose mere existence had caused Blackmoore to continue down the path of a pathetic, drunken coward. Thrall, who had led an army of orcs against Durnholde. No, it was quite the joy that lay before him. The victory would be even sweeter, given what a challenge the greenskin actually was.

Fly away, orc, he mused, his thin lips curling in a smile. Fly, but you cannot flee.

I will find you, and I will slay you. And then I will help destroy your world.